


Spider's Web

by Elysian_Abyss



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Acrobatics, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Arthur Morgan Has Low Self-Esteem, Asexual Character, Asexuality Spectrum, Attempt at Humor, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Betrayal, Biracial Character, Bisexual Male Character, Blood Loss, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Catholicism, Character Death, Character(s) of Color, Child Abandonment, Child Death, Childhood Memories, Circus, Death, Derogatory Language, Drunkenness, Early Van der Linde Gang, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Family Reunions, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Gun Violence, Half-Siblings, Heartache, High Honor Arthur Morgan, Historical Inaccuracy, Homelessness, Hope, Horses, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I promise, Ilya Swears A Lot, Ilya and Elsbeth Being Idiots, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Injury Recovery, Insecurity, Inspired by Music, Inspired by The Greatest Showman (2017), Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Major Character Injury, Mary Linton tryna clap them cowboy cheeks, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Pre-Canon, Minor Character Death, Multilingual Character, Multilingual Character(s), Not Beta Read, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Male Character(s) - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Pickpockets, Play Fighting, Possible Character Death, Pre-Canon, Pre-Video Game: Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, References to Depression, Religion, Reunions, Romance, Sexual Content, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry, Sister-Sister Relationship, Spiders, Spoilers, Street Rats, Supportive Siblings, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags will be updated, Torture, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, What Have I Done, Young Arthur Morgan, Young John Marston, freaks, probably, sleep is for the weak, spot the references, vitiligo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22572298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elysian_Abyss/pseuds/Elysian_Abyss
Summary: On the streets from a young age with only each other to depend on, Ilya and Elsbeth Wagner - a sibling duo that specialises in stealing from the higher class - were swept up by the Van der Linde gang soon after young John Marston. For almost thirteen years they were loyal, but after the botched ferry job in Blackwater their loyalties are pushed to the breaking point. As they watch the family they had found crumble around them, will they both be able to survive the fall of the Van der Linde gang or will they join their fallen friends on the other side?
Relationships: Charles Smith (Red Dead Redemption)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Outlaws from the West

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not speak German, I'm using a translator (not Google). If anything is wrong, please correct me :)
> 
> 23/03/2020: Minor adjustments made.

They had been running for weeks, the blizzard had hit sometime during the last three days and had yet to show any sign of dying down. At least it gave them a chance to put some distance between them and the law. 

Following near the end of the caravan, Elsbeth pulled her bandana up further to protect her face from the snow as it battered against her, the ice-cold wind hitting her like one of Miss Grimshaw's slaps. She turned her head towards Ilya as he rode beside her on his horse, blue-green eyes filled with concern for her brother. She knew something was bothering him, he had barely spoken a word since they left Blackwater, aside from occasionally telling someone to "get fucked". The young woman was still trying to wrap her head around everything that had taken place over the last few days, her mind swarmed with questions about what happened on the boat. She wanted to ask Ilya, but now really didn't seem like the best of times to be pestering him.

' _Schwester,_ something wrong?' Ilya asked over the howling of the wind, catching her looking at him. ("Sister,")  
'Are you okay? You're never this quiet,' She countered, turning her head back around to face the caravan.  
Ilya fell silent for longer than she would have liked. She looked at him again, her concern deepening at the conflicted expression plastered on Ilya's face.  
'I'm fine. Don't worry about me, we've got bigger problems to deal with,' it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself that rather than her.  
Elsbeth decided not to push him further, knowing all too well that if Ilya wanted to tell her something he would do it in his own time and not a second before that.

From the front of the caravan, she heard Dutch calling out for them to come on, indicating that they had found somewhere to set up camp. A little while later they came across an abandoned town that was still intact, well, mostly anyway.   
While the majority of the gang piled into one of the cabins, Elsbeth started bringing the horses into the stable and caring for the animals best she could. It was quiet in the stable, the only sound being made by the horses and the wind outside, and for the first time in days, Elsbeth felt like she could finally breathe easily. Although, with the quiet came the inability for her to stop the situation they were in from replaying in her head. Jenny was dead and Davey was no doubt heading in the same direction, Sean and Mac had been separated from the gang when they fled Blackwater and were believed dead, and as awful as it sounded; Elsbeth hoped Mac was dead, she knew he wouldn't be able to go on without Davey. 

The blue-black Friesian butted his head against hers, breaking her from her thoughts and bringing her full attention back onto him.   
_'Was ist es?'_ Elsbeth asked, raising her gloved hand to rub Kaiser's ear. ("What is it?")  
Kaiser's eyes were fixed on the stable doors, staring something down. Elsbeth looked over her shoulder, nothing was there. She turned back to her horse and shook her head, chuckling softly at the animal.  
_'Nein, wir gehen nicht wieder hinaus. Nicht heute Abend,'_ she told him. ("No, we are not going out again. Not tonight,")  
The Friesian sighed heavily, nudging her with his nose.  
_'Ich weiß, dass dir der Schnee gefällt, ich mag ihn auch. Wir können morgen ausgehen,'_ Elsbeth gently pushed Kaiser's nose away from her face. ("I know you like the snow, I like it too. We can go out tomorrow,")  
Kaiser's eyes were pinned onto the stable doors again, ears pointed forward stiffly.  
_'Ich habe nein gesagt, wir können morgen ausgehen,'_ she crossed her arms and tried to remain firm. ("I said no, we can go out tomorrow,") 

The stable doors creaked open, the old wood groaning in protest. Elsbeth looked over her shoulder, looking away quickly when she saw it was Charles that had come into the decrepit building and putting her focus back onto the horses. No words were exchanged between them, which Elsbeth was thankful for. She didn't feel like she was especially good at talking to people; her mother used to say she got along better with animals than she did people, Ilya had said the same at some point as well. 

A sharp intake of breath causes her to look in the man's direction, he was sat on the wooden bench with his injured hand no longer wrapped in bandages. Elsbeth assumed he was changing the wrappings. Without giving it much thought; Elsbeth reached into her satchel and retrieved a small tin from it, removing the glove on her left hand before walking the short distance over to him.  
'Here, let me help,' She said, her heart hammering in her chest.  
Charles glanced up at her and for a moment Elsbeth thought he was going to tell her that he didn't need her help, then he sighed softly and held his hand out to her. She carefully took his hand in hers and when she saw the burn, Elsbeth was surprised by how well Charles was handling the pain this burn was undoubtedly causing him. She flipped open the tin and used her left hand to scoop a little of the balm onto her fingers, flipping it closed afterwards.   
'What happened?' she asked, applying the balm onto the burn as gently as she could.  
'A stupid mistake,' Charles answered, shaking his head. 'I wasn't careful enough when we were going through the engine room to get off the boat.'  
'Mistakes happen. Don't be so hard on yourself,' Elsbeth told him, hoping to sound comforting.  
Elsbeth rewrapped his hand then let go of it, stepping away from him and picking up the tin. She held it out for him to take.  
'This is pretty good for burns,' she stated. 'Just put a little on whenever you change your bandages.'  
Charles took the small tin from her just as Ilya walked, or more like stomped, into the stables, a string of angry German spewing out his mouth so fast Elsbeth couldn't understand it.  
'I'll leave you two to it, thank you,' Charles nodded to Elsbeth before leaving the stable.  
Elsbeth sighed softly before turning to Ilya, who was still ranting away.

'Ilya,' Elsbeth called out calmly, hoping to calm him to an extent where she could at least understand what he was saying. 'Ilya, I don't know what you're saying. You need to calm down.'  
'Fucking O'Driscolls...!' Ilya hissed, his accent thicker than ever. 'Fucking O'Driscolls, up here! We don't have a run-in with them for months, but the minute we get up here we find them-'  
Elsbeth sighed, mentally preparing herself for the night ahead of her.


	2. If the Wind Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't speak German, boahs. Correct me if I get anything wrong.
> 
> 21/02/2020: Added a bit more onto the ending :)

The night they arrived at Colter, Ilya told her everything; what happened on the ferry, how he had tried his hardest to stop Dutch from killing that girl. Then he told her what had happened that night that had made him so furious; they found Mrs Adler hiding in her cellar while O'Driscolls all but destroyed her home after murdering her husband, which Micah then managed to burn down. She had never seen Ilya so inconsolable before and she certainly never wanted to see him like that again, it took hours for him to calm down.

The next day Ilya was back to normal and hellbent on forgetting the night before even happened. They had both volunteered to go to the Adler's place to bury Mrs Adler's husband. When they got back, they found out that Arthur and Javier had found John up in the mountains and brought him back. ( _"Jesus Christ!_ _You got even fucking uglier, Marston."_ _"Shut the Hell up, Ilya."_ ) 

Two days later, Elsbeth tried to think of a reason to justify what was happening but she couldn't. The whole time she had been with the gang Dutch had preached about how "revenge was a luxury they could not afford" yet here he was gearing up to go attack an O'Driscoll camp that was nearby on what she could only describe as nothing other than a revenge mission. Ilya had made it pretty clear she wasn't coming with them, not that she was arguing with him. ( _"You're not going anywhere near those fucking O'Driscolls, you got that?"_ )

'Your face will stay that way if the wind changes, you know that, right?' Ilya asked, hauling himself onto the back of the grey Percheron mare he so lovingly called Brutus.  
She broke from her thoughts and lifted her eyes to meet her brothers, unaware she had been glaring at the snow around her feet.  
'That would probably be an improvement then,' Elsbeth replied, unknowingly pulling her bandana up further. 'You know when you will be back?'  
'Hard to tell,' Ilya shrugged. 'Why don't you try going hunting? That'll keep you busy 'til we get back, keep that old bastard Pearson off our backs.'  
Elsbeth chuckled, nodding in agreement.  
'I'll see you later,' Ilya leaned down and made a point of ruffling Elsbeth's already messy hair. 'Don't do anything stupid without me.'  
'Impossible,' Elsbeth laughed, smacking his hand away. 'You're taking _all_ the stupid with you.'  
Ilya placed his hand on his chest, feigning hurt.   
'That's not a very nice thing to say to your favourite brother, what would _Vater_ say?' Ilya grinned. ("Father")  
'Miss Elsbeth!'   
The masked woman turned around, brows raising when she saw Arthur waving her over.  
'Ohh, what have you done?' Ilya teased. 'He sounds pissed.'   
'It's Arthur, Ilya, he usually sounds like that,' Elsbeth rolled her eyes. 'And you can't talk, you sound even angrier than him.'  
'Oh, fuck off.'  
'See? Proving me right.'

\- X ~ X -

  
'You're a good shot.'  
Elsbeth felt heat rush to her face as she secured the deer to Kaiser, glad of the bandana covering her face.   
_'Danke...'_ she kicked herself the second that word left her lips, instantly correcting herself. 'I mean, thanks.'  
'Who taught you, your brother?' Charles asked as he mounted his horse.  
'No, my _Vati_ did,' she pulled herself up onto Kaiser with little difficulty. 'You okay to head back now?' ("Dad")  
'Sure, come on.'  
  
They rode alongside each other in comfortable silence for a while until Charles spoke up.

'So, what is it with the O'Driscolls?' he questioned.  
'You haven't had to deal with them yet, have you?' Elsbeth inquired. 'Guess we haven't seen much of them the last while back...'  
'I've heard plenty talk about them.'  
'Well, they're a big gang, a horrible bunch of bastards. Dutch and their leader, Colm, had a truce back in the early days, but that didn't last; Dutch killed Colm's brother, then Colm killed Dutch's woman. We've been butting heads with them ever since, a proper blood-feud,' she told him, shaking her head at the thought of the rival gang.  
'So I heard,' Charles commented. 'Watch out. Bear up ahead.'  
Elsbeth pulled on Kaiser's reins gently, the Friesian stopping beside Taima.  
'He must be real hungry, stay well back,' he warned her. 'Spring storms like this are the worst for animals that sleep all winter.'  
Elsbeth only nodded, her eyes staying pinned on the bear as it walked away from them.

They continued only once the animal was out of sight, cutting up off the trail to avoid the animal further.  
'How long have you been with us now?' She wondered.   
'Five, six months. Something like that,' the man answered, shrugging.  
'What were you doing before you fell in with us?' the words left her mouth before she could properly think about them. 'I'm sorry, it's fine if you don't want to talk about it-'  
'No, it's okay,' Charles assured her. 'My father was a coloured man and my mother was an Indian. We lived with her tribe for a while, but when we were forced to move from our lands, we fled. I was too young to really remember much. A few years later some soldiers captured my mother and took her somewhere, we never saw her again. My father was a very sad man after that, the drink had a mean hold on him. I set out on my own when I was about thirteen, been alone ever since.'  
'Would you ever do that again?' Elsbeth asked, something in the back of her mind not liking the idea of Charles leaving the gang.  
'No. I'm done with it,' Charles stated firmly. 'Always wondering if someone's going to kill you in your sleep.'  
'I still wonder that most nights, especially when Ilya's concerned,' the masked woman joked.   
'I reckon you're okay... This suits me,' he chuckled. 'Sure, I could fall in with another gang, but Dutch... you know, Dutch is different.'  
'Oh yes,' Elsbeth chuckled. 'He certainly is that.'  
'He treats me fair, most you do. And for a feller with a black father and an Indian mother, that ain't normally the case.'  
Elsbeth understood that; Ilya and she understood how unkind the world could be to people that didn't "fit in", and that was putting it mildly.  
'Well,' Elsbeth tried to find the right words. 'We need you now, more than ever.'   
'Good. So, how long you been with these boys? Why ain't you run off?'  
'Oh, God. Must be over twelve years now,' Elsbeth guessed.  
'Twelve years?' Charles repeated, surprise evident in his voice.  
'Yes, been with them ever since the circus. Hosea taught me to speak English, Ilya too, taught us a couple of other things as well.'  
'I'm sure.'  
'Dutch saved most of us. That's why we need to stick by him through this,' Elsbeth told him. 'He always sees us right.'

Despite everything that had occurred over the last few days, Dutch had saved Ilya and her all those years ago. She couldn't bear to think about what could have become of them if Dutch and Hosea hadn't taken them in when they did. Right now, all she could do was have hope that they would be able to overcome this tragedy. They had been in worse scrapes than this, she knew they were capable of doing it. _She had to have hope._

The rest of the ride back to camp was filled with silence.


	3. Snowball Fights and a Train

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I barely speak English, mah boahs. If I get anything wrong please tell me! :)
> 
> Gonna be honest, I partially wrote the actual mission parts when I was drunk. If it doesn't make much sense that is the excuse I am using. I am very sorry. X'D  
> Enjoy the chapter!

Ilya let loose a string of curses as he crashed to the ground face-first; Elsbeth wasn't sure if it was in German, Russian or some crude amalgamation of the two languages. Clasping both hands over her mouth, Elsbeth struggled to hold back her laughter as she pressed her back against the wall of one of the cabins and hoped he wouldn't see her. She hadn't intended to throw that snowball so hard, okay, maybe she had. 

'Elsbeth?'

The masked woman turned her head, brushing white strands of hair from her eyes and forcing herself to swallow her amusement.

'Oh, _hallo,_ Charles,' she greeted him, peering around the corner to see what Ilya was doing. 'You alright? How's the hand?' ("hello,")  
  
Since they had gone hunting, Elsbeth had found herself in the company of Charles more than she had previously been in the last six months he had been a part of the gang. Neither spoke much when they were in each other's presence, now that she thought about it, she realised how he seemed to be one of the few gang member's that could keep their mouth shut for longer than three minutes. 

'I'm okay, the hand's a lot better,' he responded, raising his - no longer bandaged - hand. 'You alright?'  
Elsbeth turned and smiled at him, forgetting about the bandana covering her face.  
'I'm alright,' she stooped down and made a few snowballs. 'Ilya and I are having a snowball fight. You want to join us?'  
Elsbeth was nearly knocked on her ass by the snowball that collided with her chest. She quickly straightened herself out and turned to glare at her assailant. However, it disappeared as quick as it came when her eyes landed on her brother, grinning from ear to ear and snow covering him from head to toe.  
'I doubt old Smithy there would know what fun was if it hit him upside the head!' Ilya laughed, tossing the snowball and just missing Elsbeth's head.  
 _'Sohn einer Hure!'_ she cursed, picking up one of the snowballs she had made and throwing it as hard as she could at Ilya, hitting him in the face and putting him on his back. She picked up another two snowballs, holding one out for Charles to take. 'You up for it, Charles?' ("Son of a whore!")

A grin rivalling the one Ilya had been sporting moments ago formed on her lips when the towering man took the ball of snow from her, but it quickly vanished when he threw it right back at her; knocking her to the ground.  
She let out an exaggerated gasp, instantly getting back up and grabbing another snowball. She chucked it at Charles, hitting him in the arm.

'And here I thought we were friends, Mr Smith!'

Her only response from him was a laugh that nearly put her back on the ground by itself. The sound caused her to momentarily freeze-up before her senses came back and she was able to take cover behind a different wall.

'Oh, it's fucking on now!' Ilya exclaimed, clambering to his feet with little grace. 'Come on then-'  
A snowball to the mouth shut him up, another to the chest put him back on the ground.  
'You pair of fucking bastards! That's bad form-' the rest of his sentence came out in an incomprehensible jumble of Russian. 

In the next few seconds, all Hell broke loose. Ilya seemed to believe he was winning despite having been hit the most out of the three of them and had successfully hit anyone who dared to step foot outside the cabins while rarely actually getting a shot at Elsbeth and Charles. Elsbeth was almost positive this was the most fun she had had in years and Charles, well, Charles was damn near impossible to hit but nearly always managed to hit either Ilya or Elsbeth. 

'Gentlemen, Miss Wagner, it is time to make something of ourselves,' Dutch boomed, his voice sounding through-out the abandoned town. 'Get your horses ready, we have a train to rob.'

Elsbeth jogged over to where Kaiser was hitched, she did a quick check of her weapons before hauling herself onto the Friesian's back.

'Alright, we're moving out. Follow me!'

She rode at the back of the group, Ilya next to her. Elsbeth could hear him muttering something, it sounded like a prayer, like the ones their father had taught them when they were young. This confused her immensely; Ilya never prayed, he always said he thought it was a waste of time. 

'Okay, gentlemen, Miss Wagner. Listen up, all of you,' Dutch began, breaking Elsbeth's focus from Ilya and turned it onto him. 'According to the information so kindly provided to us by the O'Driscolls, the train will be coming north, through Big Valley. We're going to pick it off after it crosses the border into the Grizzlies. There's a raised spot there that should give us good vantage. Charles, you'll keep lookout for any outriders with Ilya. How's that hand, by the way?'  
'I'll be fine.'  
'Good. I'll take the driver and engineer, then run point. Lenny and Javier, you two take the front cars, deal with any guards. Arthur, Elsbeth and Micah, you head straight for the back. That's what we're after... Mr Cornwall's private car.'  
'You, Wagner and me, Morgan,' Micah called out.  
Elsbeth rolled her eyes, she could hardly wait for this job to be over now. She had no problem working with Arthur, she had done that countless times before, but Micah? Just... Ugh.  
'Enough!' Dutch exclaimed, once again bringing Elsbeth's attention back to him. 'After Bill blows the tracks, we're gonna need to move fast. Is everyone clear on what they're doing?'  
Everyone gave him some form of confirmation.  
'Good. Now, come on. Let's ride.'

\- X ~ X -

For the first time in a very long time; Elsbeth wished she had listened to her brother and not jumped onto the, still moving, train after the detonator malfunctioned, and it only took a shovel to the face for her to realise that. 

The blow from the shovel left Elsbeth disorientated and gave her attacker the chance to get her in a chokehold. She struggled against him with all her might; however, her attempts proved futile. Every part of her, excluding her actual voice, was screaming and she did the only thing she could think to do, she bit that bastard's arm as hard as she possibly could. His grip on her loosened enough for her to twist herself around and kick him between the legs, which made him instinctively grab the area and fall to his knees. Now completely out of his grasp, Elsbeth reached for her Volcanic pistol - which she had dropped when she got smacked by the shovel - and put a bullet in the man's head. She hated killing, really she did. She did her utmost to avoid it best she could, but, more often than she liked, it was the only option she had. 

Elsbeth dashed to the front of the train and pulled the lever for the brakes, the train screeching as it came to a stop. She jumped off the train and went to call out to Arthur and Lenny, only to have to run for cover behind some nearby rocks as gunshots rang out.

'Shit, more guards coming outta that train car!'

Letting out a few curses under her breath, Elsbeth returned their fire. She was beginning to understand why so many O'Driscolls were up here, the number of guards coming from one train car was ridiculous. 

Elsbeth breathed a sigh of relief when the rest of the gang made their appearance and made quick work of dispatching the remaining guards. Although, any relief she felt was killed just as fast as the guards were when she saw the scowl Ilya was sporting. If looks could kill she certainly would be six feet under at this point.

'You three alright?' Dutch asked them as they joined the group by the last car.  
'Yes, let's just get the money and go,' Arthur sounded like he'd had enough of this whole situation.  
'We got some fellers holed up in this last car,' Dutch stated as he approached the car in question.   
'Ah, shit.'  
'What are you boys planning on doing in there? Listen to me, we don't want to kill any of ya... any more of ya.' That last part was mostly directed at the gang and earned a few laughs. 'I give you my word, but trust me, we will.'  
'I work for Leviticus Cornwall,' came from inside the car.  
'Come on, boys,' Dutch urged.  
'We got our orders!'  
'Okay. You asked for it,' Dutch began counting down. 'Five...'  
'We ain't opening this door!'  
'Four...'  
It fell silent from inside the car.  
'Three, two, one.'

When the door remained closed, Dutch turned to the gang.

'Seems our friends have gone deaf,' he told them. 'Wake 'em up a little!'

The group opened fire onto the side of the car, the shouts of Cornwall's men being drowned out by the noise. This went on for a minute at most, Dutch stopping them with a shout.

'That's enough! Mr Williamson, give Mr Morgan and Mr Smith some dynamite. You two boys, go blow that door open.'

'Now don't matter too much to us, but you boys in there might want to take a step back,' Dutch yelled as the men secured the dynamite to the car door and lit the fuse.  
'Unless you got a death wish, I'd step back fellers,' Bill stated like it wasn't the obvious thing to do.  
Elsbeth backed up with the rest of the gang and turned away from the dynamite as it went off, creating a gaping hole where the door had once stood. Three men appeared at the hole, hands up in surrender. 

'Alright, come on... just walk on out here,' Dutch ordered them. 'We don't want to kill you, we just wanna rob your boss.'

Cornwall's men were held at gunpoint while Arthur, Lenny and Micah boarded the train. Ilya grabbed Elsbeth by the wrist and dragged her out off to the side.

'What the hell were you thinking?' Ilya hissed quietly. 'I told you not to jump on that fucking train.'   
'I don't need you to tell me what I can and can't do,' she told him, yanking her wrist out of his grasp. 'I wasn't the only one to do it, go hassle someone else about it.'   
'They aren't my sister, you are. You could have been hurt,' he snapped.  
'That's kind of an occupational hazard, Ilya,' she sighed, rolling her eyes. 'I'm fine, there's nothing to worry about.'  
'I'm not worried, I just-' he nearly growled. 'We'll talk about this later, there's Arthur.'   
Ilya walked away from her quickly, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. Elsbeth sighed deeply and holstered her pistol.

Not too long later, they were riding back to camp. Ilya ignored her for the majority of the ride, only speaking to her when they got back to camp and even then it was only to tell her what Miss Grimshaw had told him to tell her.

Packing up camp took awhile and the journey down the mountain was tedious. Ilya jumped at the chance to volunteer himself and Elsbeth to go ahead of the caravan and check everything was okay, truthfully, Elsbeth just thought Ilya just wanted to argue with her away from the gang. Instead, he seemed to have completely forgotten about the whole "I told you not to jump on that fucking train" thing and was more focused on getting to the new camp, "Horseshoe Overlook" as Hosea called it, before everyone else. However, they turned out to be the last ones to arrive; even Arthur, Hosea and Charles had got there before them and they had to stop and fix their wagon! ( _"We got lost, alright? At least we got here!")_

They were just in time for Dutch's speech and to hear the cover story they had cooked up - they were itinerant workers laid off when their factory got shut down. They were told a number of other things, for example, Pearson reminded the group someone would need to hunt - Ilya had jabbed her hard in the ribs at that, causing her to stomp on his foot in return - and Dutch urged them all to earn their keep, which Elsbeth thought should not have needed to be reminded. They were dismissed, Ilya and Elsbeth quickly went around camp to see what they could do to help. Miss Grimshaw found them sometime later - well, she found Ilya first then Elsbeth sometime after that, but that is neither here nor there - and let them know they would be sharing a tent. _("Just like when we were kids, eh, Elsie?" "Oh, someone please shoot me" "It wasn't that bad!")_


	4. Where the Fuck is My Bandana?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I struggle with English by itself, boahs, so there is no chance in Hell that I know German. If there are any errors, let me know! Enjoy the chapter and tell me what you think xx

Elsbeth took a swig from the half-full bottle, still listening to what Ilya was telling her about the lead he had been looking into. It felt like they had been in the saloon for a few hours, but in reality, they had only been there for around an hour; Ilya was half-drunk and she was pretty much sober. 

'He described _Vater_ and Lorelei almost perfectly, it had to have been them,' Ilya told her, sounding almost excited. 'Said they moved on a few weeks ago, just before we came down from the mountains I think.' ("Father")  
'If they're only a few weeks ahead of us, we could probably catch up to them if we tried,' Elsbeth figured. 'Didn't you tell me we came through this part of the country when we first came over from Germany?'  
'Yeah, it's changed a bit since then, but I'm pretty sure it's the same,' Ilya tipped back his drink. 'I'm thinking that they're going back the way they came, kind of like what we did back in France. They might have gone further south, but I ain't so sure about that seeing as... well, you know.'  
Elsbeth nodded, understanding what he meant.  
'Either way, it could be worth just checking out,' she shrugged. 'This is the first time someone has seen our _Vati,_ maybe we stand a chance of finding them.'("Dad,")

Ilya went silent, green eyes pinned on the bottle in his hand. An indescribable expression forming on his features, but one Elsbeth knew well.

'What are you thinking?' she asked, leaning in and resting her arms against the table.  
'We ain't seen them in nearly fifteen years,' He spoke with an unsteady voice. 'What if they don't recognise us or we don't recognise them? We were kids the last time any of them saw us-'  
'Ilya,' Elsbeth stopped him before he got too worked up over this. 'Take a good look at us and tell me how many people you think could get this ugly? They'll know it's us, no doubt, and we'll know it's them. If they have changed in any way then we will just have to accept that, nothing more to it.'  
'It's just...' Ilya sighed, running a large hand through his dark hair. 'We've been dreaming about seeing our family again for years, but it hasn't ever felt real and now it does. What do we do when we find them? They're gonna have just as many questions as we do, what do we tell them? How do we even begin to explain what we've been doing since we got lost?'

Elsbeth opened her mouth to answer but shut it immediately. She had no clue what to say to that, she had never thought about it that much before. She downed the last of her drink and sighed deeply. She had a feeling there was something in particular that he was alluding to, something she believed she knew about.

'I guess, we tell them the truth, leave out the especially nasty parts,' she guessed. 'Avoid mentioning the gang as much as possible, _Mutti_ would skin us alive if she found out about that and, uh, you should at least tell _Vati_ about Nessa...' ("Mum" "Dad")

Ilya visibly flinched at the mention of that woman's name, his grip on the bottle in his hand tightening to the point the bottle might have cracked. He drank the remainder of his beer before he responded to her.

'I-I don't know if I could bear to tell him about that,' he admitted quietly. 'It might have been years ago, but it still hurts so Goddamn much...'  
'I know it's difficult for you to talk about, it was an appalling thing that happened,' Elsbeth consoled him. 'But, living or dead, he deserves to know about his kin.'

Ilya doesn't say anything, his eyes barely leave the bottle in his hand. Elsbeth sighed, adjusting the light blue scarf wrapped around her head and shoulders as she stood up.

'We'll figure it out, we always do, try not to worry about it too much,' she told him, hoping to change the subject of conversation. 'How about we get one more drink then head home, talk about all this properly?'

It took a while for Ilya to answer her, his gaze finally leaving the bottle as he pushed it away from him.  
'Yeah...' he cleared his throat. 'And, uh, could you do me a favour?'  
'Of course,' she waited for him to continue speaking.  
'Could you tell tall, dark and broody over at the bar to crane his neck in? Though, you might want to put it a bit nicer.'  
'What-' Elsbeth looked over her shoulder, turning back to Ilya in a flash the second she realised who he was referring to. 'Seriously, Ilya?'  
'What can I say?' Ilya dismissed her unimpressed look with a shrug and a smirk. 'I don't like being stared at like some freak.'  
Elsbeth quirked a brow, crossing her arms over her chest.  
'That is kind of what we are, Ilya,' she reminded him. 'And he isn't like that. You don't have to be so damn distrustful all the time, especially when it comes to people that are supposed to be our friends.'  
'He's more your friend than mine; I barely know the guy.' Ilya's smirk grew into a grin as he leaned back in his chair. 'Are you just gonna stand there or are you going to get more liquor?'  
'Are you gonna stop being a prick or am I gonna have to beat the shit out of you?' she countered, grinning under her bandana.  
'I'll have to think about that,' he chuckled. 'Now are you going or do you need _großer Bruder_ to hold your hand?' ("big brother")  
 _'Du musst mir nicht immer wieder sagen, verdammt...'_ Elsbeth held up her hands in a mocking surrender. 'I'll just be a minute. If you can wait that long.' ("You don't have to keep telling me, damn...")

The masked woman barely took two steps away from the table when she was shoved backwards; tresses of white hair temporarily blinding her when her scarf fell as her lower back slammed into the edge of the table. Ilya was on his feet in an instant and on his ass even faster. A variation of "what the fuck" and "fucking Hell" spilling from the pair when they regained their balance. Nearly every patron of the saloon was involved in the fight that had broken out one way or another, Ilya was the first one to jump in and start throwing punches with Elsbeth following him not a second later.

The snowy-haired woman kicked the man nearest to her's legs out from under him, his head cracking against the hard wooden floorboards below. An elbow to the ribs caused her to spin on her heel and throw the best hook she could manage, hitting her attacker in the jaw. She drew her leg back and swung it forward, catching them just above the hip and sending them to the floor. She caught a glimpse of Ilya from the corner of her eye, three guys backing him into a corner, and turned to look at him properly to see if he needed a hand. However, judging by the wild glint in his eyes, she figured he would be fine on his own. A hand grabbing onto the back of her scarf and part of her bandana caught her off guard, it dragged her back a few paces and knocked her off balance for a moment. She reached back and gripped the hand tightly, harshly ripping it from the material around her neck, she let go of the hand and pivoted on the ball of her foot. Now facing the man that grabbed her; she raised her leg and kicked him as hard as possible in the groin, landing another kick to his jaw when he fell to the floor and knocking him out cold. 

'What the hell is going on down here?' 

Elsbeth turned to look in the direction the demand came from, blue-green eyes landing on a man furiously stomping down the stairs. The only word she could think of to describe him was large, he looked about twice the size of Ilya. She heard the bartender refer to the man as "Tommy" but didn't pay much attention after that as another patron decided to try and square up to her. Just like the previous three men she had fought, he was knocked unconscious quickly. The entire fight was more or less over; excluding Arthur, who had been thrown through the saloon window and was now fighting Tommy in the street outside the saloon.

The small woman soon became painfully aware of the lack of coverage on her face; horrified to find her bandana had come undone at some point during the fight and was now lying somewhere on the floor. She grabbed her scarf and used it as a substitute as she desperately searched the floor for any sign of the dark turquoise garment she relied so heavily upon. While she looked, she prayed to every God she could think of that no one had seen her face, racking her brain to try and figure out when it had slipped off her without her noticing; deeming it had to have been when she was grabbed from behind.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,' she cursed repeatedly under her breath, now panicking as she couldn't find her goddamn bandana anywhere.  
How the Hell could it have just disappeared?!

'You alright there, Elsbeth?'

She didn't dare look up or even glance in Charles' general direction. She wasn't willing to take the risk of him seeing her face. She pulled her scarf tighter around her face in an almost protective manner, her eyes barely peeking out over it. God, why did it have to be him of all people? Where was Ilya when she needed him? By that point, Elsbeth was in full panic mode. She could feel her heart hammering against her ribs and the blood pounding in her ears, but that could also have been because of the adrenaline coursing through her system. 

'Can't find my fucking bandana,' she managed to splutter out, eyes furiously skimming over every single inch of the saloon floor.   
'Here it is.'

Elsbeth looked toward where Charles stood before she could stop herself, straight away her eyes snapped onto the familiar fabric in his hand, relief flooded over her and drove the panic that was plaguing her away faster than she could blink.

 _'Danke,'_ she breathed, taking her bandana from him and tying it securely around her head then pulling her scarf back up over her head. _'Sie sind ein Lebensretter!'_ ("Thank you," "You are a lifesaver!")  
It wasn't until after she had spoken that she realised she had accidentally slipped into German, she repeated herself in English.  
'Don't mention it,' the towering man offered a small smile before walking out of the saloon, presumably to join the other's outside watching the fight.

\- X ~ X -

'Ah, Ilya and Elsbeth Wagner!' Trelawny called out to them as the siblings stumbled over to the General store. 'Oh, dear. You don't look too well, Ilya.'

Ilya dismissed the Englishman's comment with a wave - the action nearly causing him to lose balance - and a slurred shout of "I'm fine, Goddamn it!". The tall man was currently being held up by Elsbeth after getting a nasty bump on the head during the bar fight. The female Wagner gave Trelawny a little wave with her free hand as a greeting.

The magician's attention was turned from the two Wagner's and onto the approaching Javier, Charles and Bill, greeting them like he had Ilya and Elsbeth.

'You're right, we ain't too popular in Blackwater,' Dutch continued the conversation he had been having with Trelawny before they had joined them.   
'We left a lot of money there,' Arthur told him.  
'And young Sean it seems,' Trelawny added.

Elsbeth's eyes widened with surprise and she felt Ilya attempt to stand up straighter.

'Sean? You've found him?' Duch asked in disbelief.  
'Yes, I have,' the Englishman answered. 'He's being held by some bounty hunters trying to see how much money the government will pay them, I know he's in Blackwater but there's talk of them moving.'  
'If we step foot in Blackwater...' Arthur rubbed his jaw, groaning in pain. 'Well, then we're dead men for sure.'  
'There'll be Pinkertons all over the place, but if he's alive we gotta try.' Dutch stated.  
'Yeah, of course,' Arthur muttered, standing up from the steps of the General store.  
'It's you they want, Dutch,' Trelawny turned to look at him.  
'Always is,' Dutch acknowledged. 'Charles, Elsbeth, go find out what you can, carefully.'  
'Oi, what 'bout me?' Ilya called out, pushing himself away from Elsbeth and nearly tripping over his own feet.   
'Bill, take Ilya home before he hurts himself anymore, I trust you can manage that,' Dutch ordered. 'Josiah take Javier. Arthur, go get yourself cleaned up. Join them when you're ready.'  
  



	5. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the drill by now, boahs. I don't speak German or any other language, just a little English. Let me know if I get anything wrong so I can sort it out! A bit of a Trigger Warning for later in the chapter.
> 
> Updates should get back to normal soon. Enjoy the chapter and tell me what you think xx
> 
> 06/06/2020 - Some dialogue added.

It had been a couple of hours since she had returned from Blackwater after rescuing Sean. The ride back to camp had been near torturous with her being the one given the absolute pleasure of escorting him back to camp and having her ears talked off in the process, a massive contrast from the blissfully silent ride to Blackwater. She had never been more tempted to just say "fuck it" and make the man walk back to camp, but then she thought of the trouble she would get from Ilya alone and convinced herself it wasn't worth it. Kaiser, on the other hand, wasn't so easily swayed and had attempted to throw Sean off of him more times than she could count. When they got back to camp and Elsbeth was finally able to rid herself of the Irishman's constant word vomit, Dutch announced the gang would have a little party to celebrate Sean's safe return.

A few beers later, Ilya was barely able to stand but still insisted on annoying the hell out of his sister. Hence why she was sitting by the cliff; hiding from her brother with whatever liquor she had grabbed in her haste to escape him and her journal. She may have been a little drunk by then as well, not that she would admit that out loud. 

Elsbeth let out a sigh, her head falling back to rest against the rock behind her as she stared up at the cloudless night sky. The music from camp was playing in the background, the voices of her fellow gang member weaving into it. Spirits were higher, the air easier to breathe, a welcome change from the stress the last few weeks had brought upon them. She could hear Ilya yelling about something in Russian and Sean bellowing something equally as incomprehensible back at him. _At least he was feeling better after what happened at the saloon._

The sky above her was like a vast ocean of darkness, pin-pricks of light clustered across the inky canopy to make up the constellations her father had once been able to name as if they had been old friends. The moon was nowhere to be seen, but she knew without a doubt that it would make an appearance eventually. The night brought with it a cool breeze that caused the leaves on the trees to rustle, the sound accompanied by the starlight eased Elsbeth into a trancelike state. It wasn't a feeling she was unfamiliar to; nighttime had always had that effect on her. She liked to think it was a good thing seeing as the night reminded her of her father and when he used to take Ilya and her into the woods at night to see what they normally wouldn't during the day. Her chest began to ache at the very thought of her father, the mere memory of him bringing back all the unwelcome questions and assumptions her mind had made over the time she and Ilya had gotten lost. _What happened that night? Had they been looking for Ilya and her? Did they just get lost or was there something more sinister at play?_

Her train of thought was cut off abruptly by a loud slur of Russian curses, followed by obnoxiously loud laughter that echoed around the clearing then another string of incoherent Russian. She sighed deeply and shook her head, banishing both the unwanted thoughts and the minuscule desire she had to learn what had her brother shouting like that.

'Evening, Elsbeth.'

Elsbeth nearly jumped out of her skin and bit down on her tongue to smother the yell of surprise that threatened to leave her.

 _'Guten Abend,'_ she greeted him, doing her best to hide the fact he had startled her. 'Not enjoying the party?' ("Good evening,")  
'Just looking for some peace and quiet,' he answered. 'What about you?'  
'Something like that,' the pale-haired German chuckled. 'My brother and Sean together can be... a bit much.'   
'That's one way to put it.'

Charles stood beside the rock, staring out over the cliff-edge, an expression Elsbeth couldn't put a name to on his features, yet one she felt she knew all too well. She sat up straighter, adjusted the position of her legs so they were pulled up closer to her chest and put her journal to the side. Any awkwardness she may have felt left the instant she realised something was certainly amiss with the towering man.

'Are you alright, Charles?' her accent came out sounding thicker than she would have liked.

Charles glanced down at her for a moment or two, then - as he had done that first night in Colter - sighed deeply and sat down cross-legged next to her on her right. They lapsed into silence once more, Elsbeth bided her time and waited for when he chose to talk. After almost twenty-seven years of dealing with Ilya's stubbornness, she knew she could be patient. Casting her gaze skyward, the masked woman did just that. From her peripherals, she could see him doing the same.

'It's a beautiful night,' Charles commented, bringing an end to the quiet that had situated itself between them. 

'Yes, it is,' the white-haired woman agreed, her voice remaining soft and the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips going unnoticed due to her mask.

'I... I'm not much of a story-teller so, uh, forgive me but, I really... I-I don't have much to say,' he began, drawing Elsbeth's full attention back onto him as he spoke. 'Life's always confused me. I... I don't feel I understand it very much. Other human beings seem to understand why they were born but, for me... it seems like I was born to hurt and suffer myself. That doesn't always seem like a really good reason. Uh... I wish there was another way. But, here in this land, uh... I feel very stuck.'

Elsbeth was slightly taken aback by all that the normally reserved man had just revealed to her. She hadn't been expecting him to be so open with her, nevertheless, she was happy that he did.

'But uh,' Charles cleared his throat. 'I'm sorry to complain. It's just... it's just so...'  
'You don't need to apologise, you haven't done anything wrong,' Elsbeth assured him, reaching out and gently placing her hand over his. 'You aren't alone. I understand how you feel, maybe it isn't exactly the same, but I know how it feels to be lost and confused. You're a good man, probably one of the best I know, try not to be so hard on yourself.'

She turned her head to look at Charles, smiling softly beneath her bandana and her eyes radiating kindness.

'I'm here for you if you ever want to talk.'

Elsbeth felt his hand shift below her own and - thinking she had made him uncomfortable - went to pull away, only to be stopped by Charles turning his hand over and lightly taking ahold of hers before she could.

She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks, her awkwardness returning with a vengeance as she became pleasantly aware of how warm his hand was. Her heartbeat had quickened and the sound that rung in her ears mimicked that of a drum being hammered upon, yet it drowned nothing out; she could still hear as clearly as ever. God, she was almost certain the heat from her face had to be coming through her bandana at this point. Despite all that, she couldn't find it in herself to draw her hand away.

Well, that was until she made the mistake of looking down at their conjoined hands and the sight that awaited her made her blood run cold.

Before the sky and the less than desirable thoughts had distracted her, she had been drawing in her journal. She found drawing with gloves on to be an absolute nightmare, that being the reason why she had taken hers off and had then forgotten to replace them when Charles made his appearance. 

She could feel the dread setting in at the mere sight of the paler flesh she had done her utmost to hide most of her life, her throat tightened to the point she truly believed someone had their hand wrapped around it. She wanted - needed - to hide, she felt like there were a thousand eyes on her. Her stomach twisted with disgust, she felt sick. Her heart was battering against her ribcage almost painfully.

Her eyes darted from their hands to Charles himself, praying to whatever Gods she could think of that he hadn't even glanced down at their hands; that he hadn't seen her mismatched complexion. Her prayers went unanswered when she realised - to her absolute horror - that he was looking down at the one place she had hoped he wouldn't. She didn't dare try and work out what the expression his face held meant. She ripped her hand away as if he had burned her, cradling it to her chest protectively as her left hand fumbled about the ground in search of her gloves.

 _'Ich bin, äh, es tut mir wirklich leid-'_ she cursed under her breath when she noticed her mistake, hands shaking as she got her gloves back on and stumbled to her feet. ''Shit. I, uh, I-I'm really sorry. I need to go.' ("I'm, uh, I'm really sorry-")

She didn't wait to hear his response; if he had one that is. Her brain barely registered that she had gotten back to her tent until she narrowly avoided stepping on her brother as he snored on the ground next to his cot. Seeling the tent shut and stepping around Ilya, Elsbeth fell onto her bedroll and curled up into a ball. Everything she was feeling bubbling up to the surface no matter how hard she tried to keep it buried. _It was going to be one long fucking night._


	6. O'Driscolls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hullo, how's it going? 
> 
> I think we all know what I'm going to say by this point. I actually had to split this chapter into two parts because of how long it was getting, so the next chapter is pretty much complete meaning that it'll be uploaded soon. 
> 
> Also, just wanted to give a bit of a warning that my upload schedule may go a bit off. I sometimes get depression episodes (that's what I call them anyway) that I really can't do much about and with everything going on I am starting to feel a bit off. Nothing to worry about, I'll try my best to keep chapter's coming out on time.  
> Enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think.  
> Hope everyone is staying safe! <3

To say Elsbeth felt like shit would be an understatement, she felt worse than shit and she could only wish it was just from the hangover.

She was no stranger to sleepless nights. They had been a normal part of her routine for almost a year when she was sixteen and Ilya used to wake her in the middle of the night after a night terror. Then they would be awake the rest of the night talking about god knows what. However, she couldn't blame this on her brother's night terrors as they were now a rare occurrence. No, the cause of her restlessness was what had happened the night before with Charles. She had thought it over in her head umpteen times, figuring out all the different - better - ways she could have dealt with the situation instead of making a right arse of herself and running away as she had done.

After what had happened with her bandana in the saloon she should have been more careful. She should have remembered about her gloves the second she put her journal down, had she done that the whole thing wouldn't have happened and she wouldn't be feeling like this. She should have waited a bit longer before making herself scarce, or at least stuck around long enough to explain first. _God, what must Charles think?_

When that thought entered her head, Elsbeth groaned. She wasn't even sure she _wanted to_ know what Charles thought. The horrible part of her brain gave her an inkling it wouldn't be anything good and, for some unknown reason, the mere concept of Charles' opinion of her dropping made her chest ache. Although she wouldn't blame him if it did, she could fully understand why. She contemplated finding him later on that day so she could apologise and explain herself. Her father had always told her to face up to her mistakes, but the thought of facing him filled her with the same sense of dread she had felt last night. It still didn't feel right leaving things the way they were. _Maybe she could ask Ilya about it after he slept off his hangover._

Elsbeth pushed herself up from her bedroll, deciding that she may as well get up seeing as she wasn't going to sleep anytime soon.

Before she even dared to leave the tent, she triple-checked to make sure there was nothing she had forgotten. Her gloves were on - she certainly wasn't going to make _that_ mistake again - and her bandana was pulled up as far as it could be without obscuring her vision. The last thing she grabbed was her scarf which had been neatly discarded by the side of her bedroll. She handled the faded blue fabric with great care as she gazed down at it, a small smile finding its way on to her lips. 

Her scarf was one of the only things she had from her circus days - the other being an engraved locket given to her when they first came to America - she would sooner die than part with either. The scarf had been given to her by her mother what felt like a lifetime ago and had been her second biggest comfort after they had gotten lost. She had relied on her scarf long before she ever had her bandana. 

She wrapped the scarf loosely around her shoulders and quietly left the tent.

It was earlier than she had first thought and with a glance around the camp, she saw very few were awake. One of which being the O'Driscoll they had kept tied up since Colter.

While she certainly had no love for the O'Driscolls and wished for all of them to rot in the deepest, darkest pit Hell had to offer; she couldn't stop the feeling of absolute pity that washed over her at the sight of him. He was a few years younger than her and closer in age to Mary-Beth, who she knew had been sneakily feeding him or giving him water when she thought no one was watching - that woman really was an angel - but even with that, she was surprised this kid was still alive. 

It wasn't until she walked closer to him that the smell hit her like a speeding train, her bandana doing little to block it out. She shook her head and did her best to just ignore it, focusing on what she was away to do. She picked up one of the metal cups from the crate they were kept in and filled it with water from the closest barrel before turning and taking a few steps toward the slumped over O'Driscoll.

'Hey, you still alive there?' she asked, nudging him with the tip of her boot, her voice quiet as to not draw any unwanted attention.

The O'Driscoll jolts upright, looking at her with widened eyes. She couldn't remember a time she had seen someone look so goddamn terrified.

'You must be thirsty, here,' she brought the cup closer to him. 'I haven't done anything to it, that's more my brother's thing.'

It didn't really take much persuasion to get him to drink the water, he practically inhaled it if she was honest. When the cup was empty, she walked over to Pearson's wagon and deposited it back into the crate then went back to the tree the O'Driscoll was tied to.

She knew he'd been getting interrogated by nearly everyone in camp and none of their attempts had been very successful. She doubted that he even knew any crucial information about his gang, he wasn't that high up in their ranks. She had never felt disgusted by her gang before, but the way they were _torturing_ him turned her stomach. He didn't deserve this, very few did.

'Thank you, miss...' the O'Driscoll croaked.  
'It's just Elsbeth, not a fan of being called "miss",' She said, crossing her arms. 'So, what's your actual name? Or, are you fine just going with "O'Driscoll"?'  
'I-it's Kieran...' he stuttered, hanging his head. 'And I-I ain't no O'Driscoll, miss.'  
'I'm aware,' she hummed. 'I've had a lot of less than pleasant meetings with the O'Driscolls and you aren't like them; you've got good in you, I can tell. How did you fall in with them?'  
'I-I wasn't given much choice; it was either ride with them or die,' Kieran told her, voice shaking.  
'No, that isn't much choice at all,' Elsbeth agreed, voice laden with sympathy. 'You don't have much choice here, either. I understand that you're scared, I would be too if I was in your position.'  
'M-miss. I-I really can't tell you anything.' he sounded close to tears. 'They'd kill me.'

That got her attention, maybe he did know something after all. Heh, guess she wasn't as bad at talking to people as she thought.

'I don't care much about what you do or don't know,' she told him. 'You need to tell them something, anything, or you are going to be tied to this tree for the rest of your days and trust me, that isn't going to be very long.'

Kieran didn't say anything, seeming to be deep in thought.

'Just think about it,' Elsbeth sighed. 'I'll try and bring you some food later on.'

Figuring she should probably go do something else, Elsbeth promptly left and made her way over to where her favourite Friesian was currently grazing.

\- X ~ X -

'John, Bill, Elsbeth, come here,' Arthur called out as he neared the horses, Kieran untied and walking a few paces ahead of him. 'We got a social call needs making.'

Elsbeth looked up from what she was doing with a raised brow, the pieces not yet clicking together. Nonetheless, she double-checked she had all her weapons and hauled herself onto Kaiser's back. She overheard Arthur asking Kieran where they were going, the younger man stating it was "up into the hills behind Valentine" and that he'd show them. _He must have finally talked._

'John, you take this little rattlesnake with you,' Arthur ordered. 'Any nonsense, kill him.'  
'Sure.'  
'We're gonna go pay your buddies our respects,' Arthur told Kieran.  
'He taking us to Colm?' John inquired as he and Kieran mounted Old Boy.  
'That's what he says,' Arthur replied. 'Come on.'  
'I'm taking you to him. Look, I-I-I'll give you more directions when we're close,' Kieran stuttered. 'But if I know where we are, it's up past Valentine.'  
'Alright, I'll lead,' John told them as they rode out of camp. 'Sharing saddle with an O'Driscoll. Who'd have thought.'  
'How many times I gotta say?' Kieran asked, exasperated. 'I ain't an O'Driscoll.'  
'You sure look like one and you smell like...' John groaned. 'Goddamn. You smell like one too.'  
'I smell like horseshit.'

Elsbeth bit back a laugh. _At least he was honest about it._

'That's right,' John chuckled. 'Boy, are you high.'  
'Morgan. You got throwing knives in your saddlebag. Dutch said that you might-' Bill interrupted himself. 'I was asked to give them and I'm doing you the further courtesy of telling you about it.'  
'Next time you wanna give me something, how about you give it to me?' Arthur responded, sounding none too happy with Bill. 'Stead of hiding it somewhere, hoping for the opportunity comes up to mention it.'  
'Last goddamn favour I do you.'

Elsbeth shook her head, smiling beneath her bandana.

'Hey, hey. I-i-if I got my bearings, it's over here. ' Kieran spoke up. 'Yeah. I know this country, take this track up through the rocks.'  
'How you holding up, John?' Arthur asked.  
'Fine. Still ain't right, but I'm fine.'  
'You damn well should be after all that bed rest.'  
'Hey, alright,' John sighed. 'Abigail wouldn't let me up, you know her, she won't be reasoned with.'

Again, Elsbeth had to bite back a laugh. _Talk about the pot calling the kettle black._

'Well, when you was having a failure of reason and hiding behind your woman we were getting shot at,' Arthur clearly wasn't having any of John's excuses.  
'And I'd do the same for you if you was in a bad way,' John claimed.  
'I hope so, but I fear you don't know how to help anyone excepting yourself,' the older outlaw remarked.

Elsbeth rolled her eyes at the two. It was no well-kept secret that Arthur had never truly forgiven John for that year he had abandoned the gang. She understood that he felt John had betrayed them; Ilya and she - as well as several others - had felt that way too, but most had put it behind them and moved on. She couldn't comprehend why it was so difficult for him to just forgive the boy like everyone else. Yes, John shouldn't have left the gang - especially not Abigail and little Jack - but what was done was done and nothing could change it. At the end of the day, they were family and family should always forgive each other! Well, maybe not always but you get the point.

'Now we go left,' Kieran's voice broke her train of thought. 'Road'll take us up and round.'

A few minutes of silence past between them all, Kieran being the one that broke it.

'You know,' he began. 'You all ain't that different from the O'Driscolls.'

Elsbeth's eyes narrowed. _Was he looking for one of them to kill him?_

'What did you just say?' John asked him.  
'I been watching you all these weeks and, uhh-'  
'You been tied to a tree,' John interjected. 'You don't know nothing about this gang.'  
'Yeah, well, I-I'd say you don't know much about the O'Driscolls,' Kieran protested. 'But maybe I know more about you than you know about them and I know all about them so...'

_Boy, you are digging a hole you aren't going to get out of easily._

'Tell us then,' John demanded. 'How are we like those mongrel dogs?'  
'You're outlawed like them, you're out to survive like them, you live rough, you live hard, fighting the law... nature, you're out for yourselves,' the former O'Driscoll listed.

The masked woman found it hard to disagree with most of what he said; he wasn't exactly wrong. Although, she would argue about them being out for themselves. Maybe not so much now, but they had once looked out for all the other unfortunates that were either down on their luck or cast out by society.

'See? This is why you're an O'Driscoll, O'Driscoll. You're out to survive; we're out to live, free,' John snapped. 'Colm's a sneak thief and a killer. Dutch is... Dutch is more like a teacher.'  
'From where I been, you just look the same is all...' Kieran stated.  
'Then you looked, but you ain't seen,' John told him.  
'John? Shut that boy up,' Arthur spoke up, putting an end to this catastrophe waiting to happen.  
'Enough outta you.'  
'Boys, Elsbeth, we're almost on 'em,' Arthur started. 'Now, who knows if this son of a bitch we got with us is talking true, but if it's what he says it is and Colm O'Driscolls here, we can end years of fighting. Here and now.'  
'Okay, now-now cut left up here. We go down here, into the forest,' Kieran directed.  
'We're going in quiet, taking 'em out as we find them, trying not to set things off,' Arthur instructed. 'But if we do; we move quick and hard. We settle this like we know how. Okay?'  
'Okay by me.'  
'With you, Morgan.'  
 _'Ja, verstanden.'_ ("Yes, understood.")  
'Alright then,' Arthur hummed.  
'Through the trees here,' Kieran pointed out. 'Hey, we're real close. I'd leave your horses the other side of this clearing.'

Elsbeth wasn't sure how comfortable she was with this, she wanted to trust that Kieran wasn't setting them up but there was a small voice whispering at the back of her mind that this wasn't right. Unconsciously, one of her hands wandered from Kaiser's reins to hover over her holstered pistol.

'I'll get my guns off my horse and I'm ready,' Bill commented.  
'Easy, Bill. Quiet,' Arthur cautioned.

They rode up the hill in complete silence, Kieran once again breaking it to inform them that the cabin was on the other side of the hill.

'Okay. Off your horses, let's go,' Arthur told them.

Dismounting, Elsbeth did a quick check of her weapons despite having already done so before she left the camp. All she really needed was her pistol and a knife, anything else felt a bit excessive to her. Sure, she had a bow, but she tried to only keep that for hunting animals. 

'Follow me, alright? It ain't far,' Kieran told them, walking up the hill.  
'We might'a shared a horse, but we ain't friends. Remember, I'm watching you. Every moment,' John threatened.  
'He's hardly going to screw us over now, is he?' Elsbeth finally spoke, rolling her eyes. 'That would be as good as killing himself.'

She knew there was a shorter way to say that, but she may have forgotten what that was in English.

'You'll die, boy,' Bill hissed. 'But you'll lose your balls first.'

_What the fuck, Bill?_

'Jesus Christ.'

The five of them ducked down at the top of the hill, the cabin could clearly be seen through the trees. A camp had been set up around it and Elsbeth could faintly make out the figures of several O'Driscolls. Her first thought was to scale a tree to get better vantage but that now seemed futile seeing as the trees would give her no coverage and would probably just get her spotted faster. 

'The cabin's in the clearing down there,' Kieran told them. 'There'll be a bunch of fellers hiding out there too.'  
'Are these fellers armed?' Arthur questioned.  
'Armed. Drunk. Wary of strangers. Yup,' Kieran answered.  
'And Colm O'Driscoll?'  
'Oh, he'll be holed up in his cabin. Be passed out, booze blind, likely as not.'  
'Over there, someone's coming,' Bill gestured with his revolver to the trio of O'Driscolls coming out of the trees.

The three could be heard talking from where they were. John had put his hand over Kieran's mouth and his gun to his temple to prevent the boy from making any noise to draw the O'Driscolls attention.

'What are we doing about the pisser, Morgan? One by the tree,' Bill asked quietly, or as quiet as he could get.  
'I'm going to deal with this first feller.'

Arthur crept down the hill, the aforementioned throwing knives at the ready. When the first O'Driscoll hit the ground, Elsbeth and Bill went down the hill after Arthur. John stayed back to threaten Kieran into staying put before following them.

'What about these two, Arthur?' Elsbeth asked, her voice barely above a whisper.  
'Let's get close to these two, make no mistakes here.'  
'Alright,' Elsbeth unsheathed her knife.  
'When we're there, we move at the same time,' Arthur told her.

They crept forward, knives drawn. Arthur moved to attack first; he kicked one of the O'Driscoll's legs out from under him and stabbed him in the side of the neck. Elsbeth lunged at the other O'Driscoll, grabbed a handful of greasy hair and harshly pulled his head back. She brought her knife around and plunged it deep into the man's throat. She let go and he slumped to the forest floor. She grabbed a part of the O'Driscolls shirt and used it to wipe her knife before sliding the weapon back into its sheath.

'Good work,' John commented. 'We moving on the camp? I left our guide up there. He's as meek as a little lamb.'  
'He better be,' Arthur muttered.

There was a log situated just outside the camp with an O'Driscoll sat on it. Arthur sent John to take him out quietly. John stabbed the O'Driscoll a couple of times before he took ahold of the body and pulled it out of sight behind the log.

'Okay, now what? We're at the perimeter,' John inquired.  
'Wait on my mark,' Arthur instructed them. 'I'm going to take a look at these boys.'

A minute passed before Arthur opened fire on the O'Driscolls, taking three out in a single spray.

'It's on. We move quick, we move hard!'

The next few minutes went by in a bit of a blur, as most shoot-outs did for her. Elsbeth had since moved away from the log and was partially hidden behind a wagon at the edge of their camp. She would peek around, fire at the first O'Driscoll she caught sight of, then duck right back into cover and reload if she needed to. She wasn't sure how many O'Driscolls she shot, she didn't like making a habit of keeping count of those types of things. She would occasionally hear Arthur, John or Bill shouting something over the gunshots but was never able to pick out what was being said. It wasn't long before the gunfire died out and she heard John call out that the remaining O'Driscolls were running away.

'Leave 'em,' Arthur ordered. 'Colm's still here.'  
'Hey, he said Colm'd be in the cabin,' John mentioned.  
'I'll check, you look out here.'

Arthur headed for the cabin, leaving the rest of them to loot the bodies of the fallen O'Driscolls. Elsbeth refused to do that, it felt wrong to rummage through the dead's pockets, no matter who they had been. So, she decided to follow after Arthur. As she neared the cabin a loud gunshot resounded through the clearing, followed by yelling that urged her to move all the faster. 

When she rounded the corner of the cabin; she was met with a dead body, Arthur holding Kieran at gunpoint, who was looking like he was about to piss himself. _What the hell had happened?_

'I-if I was setting you up I-I wouldn't of saved your life!' Kieran jabbered, pointing at Arthur.

She walked over and pushed Arthur back lightly. Bill and John appeared not a moment later.

'He has a point, Arthur,' she said, hoping to defuse the situation. 

Arthur thought for a second, then lowered his gun.

'Alright then, go on, get out of here,' he told Kieran,  
'Eh?'   
'I won't kill you,' Arthur took a step closer to Kieran  
'I didn't set you up-'  
'Get lost,' Arthur told him.  
'Get lost?' Kieran repeated.  
'I'm letting you run away,' Arthur grabbed Keiran by the collar of his shirt and shoved him towards the woods. 'Now go on, get out of here.'  
'That's as good as killing me!' Kieran took a few steps forward, pointing at Arthur. 'Out there, without you... Colm O'Driscoll's gonna lose his mind about this.'  
'So?' Arthur asked, hand on hip.  
'So I'm one of you now,' Kieran started firmly.

Arthur sighed heavily, bringing his hand up to his jaw. 

'Give me a break,' he groaned. 'Alright then, but I'm warning you.'  
'Oh, I know,' Kieran held his hands up.

Arthur began walking away, Bill and John close behind him. As she passed him, Elsbeth gave Kieran the thumbs up and a smile that was hidden by her bandana.

'Come on, let's get to camp,' Arthur called out.  
'So, you got the cash then?' Kieran questioned, bringing the three men to stop and turn around.  
'What cash?' Arthur inquired.  
'Yeah, there's usually some cash... in the chimney,' Kieran moved to head back into the cabin, but was stopped by Arthur.  
'I'll check it. Best you four get back to camp, quick.'  
'See, Arthur,' Kieran walked back over to where John, Bill and Elsbeth stood. 'I ain't so bad.'  
'Hey, Bill,' Arthur stopped at the door of the cabin. 'You tell Dutch, old Kieran ain't worth killing... just yet.'  
'Yeah, right you are.'


	7. Brother Knows Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hullo boahs. 
> 
> Three guesses as to what I'm gonna say. I speak a little English, any other language is a mystery to me. If there are any mistakes let me know.
> 
> Enjoy the chapter, stay safe and tell me what you think! <3

Elsbeth had been back in the camp for less than five minutes when Ilya found her. It was one of those rare days where he didn't have his hair pulled back, probably to help with the headache he undoubtedly had. She had always thought Ilya looked better with his hair down, she reckoned it was because he looked like a darker-haired version of their father when it was. Of course, when she said that to him, he disagreed and said it must have been because his hair covered the majority of his face.

 _'Kleine Schwester.'_ ("Little sister.")

Elsbeth cringed at that. There were only two possibilities for why Ilya was calling her that; he was about to annoy the life out of her or she was in trouble. Unable to think of anything she had done wrong to him, she guessed it was the first possibility and prepared for the mental torture. 

'Come on,' Ilya gripped her by the forearm and dragged her over to the horses. 'We're going for a ride. I think we need to have a little chat.'

_Ah, fuck. What had she done?_

Before she could say anything, Ilya had pulled himself onto Brutus' back and was holding out his hand to her. She let out a deep sigh and allowed him to help her onto the back of the grey mare. Elsbeth shifted herself so she sat facing backwards and leaned her back against her brother's. Ilya remained quiet until they had left camp.

'You freak,' the oldest Wagner chuckled, shaking his head. 'Why you gotta sit like that? Can't you just sit normally?'  
'When have either of us done anything normally?' the youngest fired back, shrugging.  
'Oi, we have our moments,' Ilya nudged her lightly.  
 _'Oh, ich wette, wir tun es. Bruder,'_ Elsbeth sighed. 'So, where are we going?' ("Oh, I bet we do. Brother,")   
'I did a little exploring a while ago, stumbled on a little clearing. Thought you'd like it.'

Humming in acknowledgement, Elsbeth turned her gaze up to the sky.

'So, come on. Where the fuck have you been all day?' the dark-haired man asked, glancing over his shoulder.  
'Just to deal with some O'Driscolls with Arthur, John, Bill and Kieran,' she answered. 'Kieran's the kid we had tied to the tree before you ask.'  
'I know,' he stated. 'Dutch said something about Colm, but wouldn't tell me much else. What happened?'  
'Kieran took us up to a cabin, said that was where Colm was hiding out. He wasn't there,' she told him. 'But Kieran did save Arthur's life when some old prick jumped him. I hope we keep him around.'  
'Why's that? You been making friends with the O'Driscoll?' Ilya asked, nudging her again.  
'I wouldn't say that,' Elsbeth nudged him back. 'Spoke to him a little this morning, he's not a bad kid. Doesn't really seem like much of an O'Driscoll to be honest.'  
'I guess time will prove that,' he grumbled. 'As long as he stays clear of me, everything will be fine.'

Elsbeth turned to look at her brother, pale eyebrows raised.

'That might prove a little difficult when we all live in the same camp,' she reminded him. 'I'm not telling you to be best friends with him, just don't blame him for what happened. He wasn't even with the O'Driscolls when they, you know.'

Ilya tensed and shook his head.

'There's only one fucker alive that I can blame for what happened to Nessa. The rest of them all got what they deserved, I made sure of that,' he snarled, green eyes burning with hatred. 'Until I see that old fuckwit Colm O'Driscoll dead, I will hate every last one of those bastards. Even if your new "pal" wasn't with them when they did what they did to her, that doesn't mean shit to me.'

Elsbeth lowered her head, blue-green eyes pinned on the ground like it was the most interesting thing to ever exist.

 _'Es tut mir leid, Bruder,'_ she apologised softly. ("I'm sorry, brother,")  
'I am too, don't you worry about that,' he sighed. 

Ilya ran a hand through his dark mass of hair, forcing the untamable locks out of his face and cleared his throat.

'Anyway,' he began. 'That wasn't what I needed to talk to you about, and I'm hoping you'll be honest with me and not just tell me whatever bullshit you think I wanna hear.'

Elsbeth didn't say anything and waited for him to continue speaking, only for him to dismount Brutus and pull her down after him. 

'Come on,' he offered her a half-assed smile and reached over, tousling the mop of snowy coloured hair that was already a mess before he even touched it. 'We gotta walk a little.'

 _'Hör damit auf!'_ she batted his hand away and shook her head to try and somehow remedy the mess he had made of her hair. 'Stop that!'

Ilya laughed deeply, shoulders shaking as he walked in front of her.

'But it's so fluffy and you get so annoyed when I touch it!' He argued. 'You never did grow into it, did you? You remind me of one of those chickens, fuck! What are they called? The ones that are meant to be part chicken-part rabbit-'

That's when Elsbeth swung for him. 

'I am nothing like a fucking Silkie!'

He caught her wrist before she could hit him, struggling to stay standing with how much he was laughing.

 _'Ich schwöre Gott, Ilya, ich hasse dich manchmal so sehr!'_ she swung her other first at him and, to her misfortune, he caught that one too and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. ("I swear to God, Ilya, I hate you so much sometimes!")  
 _'Oh, du liebst mich, kleine Schwester. Sie wissen, dass Sie es tun!'_ he sniggered. ("Oh, you love me, little sister. You know you do!")

Elsbeth kicked Ilya in the shin, making him release her out of surprise more than pain. _He should have expected that._

'Oh, I do love you,' she grinned, crossing her arms over her chest. 'But that doesn't mean I can't hate you too.'

Ilya laughed as he shook his head at her, forest green eyes brimming with mirth. _What an idiot._

'Come on,' he sighed lightly, calming down. 'The clearing is this way, there's this fucking monster of a tree in the middle of it. Kinda why I thought you'd like it.'

Elsbeth nearly had to run to catch up to him as he powered toward wherever this clearing was. Occasionally, she would look over her shoulder to check on Brutus, making sure that the grey mare was still following after them.

'Remember when we were kids and _Va_ _ter_ would take us into the woods?' Ilya asked as they walked, glancing at her over his shoulder with a half-grin. ("Father")

Elsbeth laughed and nodded. Ilya slowed down and she was finally able to walk alongside him at a normal pace instead of having to take about eight steps just to match one of his.

 _'Natürlich._ We used to pretend we were Hansel and Gretel,' she recounted. _'V_ _ati_ would hide from us and we had to find him.' ("Of course." "Dad")  
'And sometimes Lorelei would come with us and be the witch, she took far too much joy out of scaring us shitless,' Ilya finished.  
'We used to climb trees too, see who could get the highest before we got told to get back down. We weren't allowed to do that after you broke your arm,' Elsbeth chuckled, not that it was funny at the time. 

Ilya groaned at the memory of their father crying more than he was and Lorelei chastising him about acting like a fool. No, it certainly hadn't been a laughing matter.

'It wasn't even that bad,' he grumbled, shrugging. 'Could have been a lot worse.'   
'I think it was more the scare you gave _Mutti und Vati,'_ the younger Wagner assumed, also shrugging. ("Mum and Dad,")  
'Eh, at least I got to start knife-throwing after that.'  
'How the hell you managed to convince them to let you do that I will never know.'  
'Oh, it took a lot of pleading on my end. Let me tell you-'

Ilya stopped walking abruptly and grabbed Elsbeth by the wrist, bringing her to a halt also. She took this opportunity to take in her surroundings.

Her eyes were instantly drawn to the oak tree that stood in the middle of the small clearing. Its branches reached up to the sky and covered the clearing like a canopy, small streams of light trickled in through the gaps. The rest of the clearing was nothing out of the ordinary, but breath-taking nonetheless.

'Here we go, knew it couldn't have been much fucking farther,' he commented, dragging her over to the tree.

Elsbeth pried her wrist from Ilya's grip as they got to the massive tree and climbed up onto one of the lower branches that looked strong enough to hold her, Ilya sat down with his back against the trunk. 

'So, are you going to put me out of my misery and tell me what you wanted to talk about?' she inquired, brows raised.  
'Smithy came by the tent asking for you. Gave me your journal, you left it by the cliff when you ran off,' Ilya told her, looking up at her knowingly.  
'Did he-' cutting herself off, Elsbeth sighed heavily. 'Was he alright?'  
'I guess so, didn't seem any different from how he usually is,' Ilya shrugged. 'Now, you don't even leave that damn thing near me. You gonna tell me your side of it, or am I making assumptions off what I've already heard?'

Elsbeth jumped down from the branch she was sitting on and slumped down beside her brother. Ilya making assumptions tended to never end well for anyone involved. Ever.

'We were talking near the cliff, I forgot I didn't have my gloves on and he saw my hand. My right one,' she explained shortly, raising the mentioned hand in reference. 'I panicked, ran away. Nearly stepped on you when I got to the tent.'  
'Did he say anything when he saw it?' Ilya asked, eyes flitting to the raised appendage.  
'Nothing, well, I didn't really give him a chance to,' she brought her hand farther up and ran it through her hair before letting it drop back onto her lap. 'As I said, I panicked and ran away before he could say anything.'  
'Shit,' Ilya cursed lightly, scratching at his neck as he tried to think of what to say. 'Well, it would be better if you spoke to him about it before he starts making guesses.'  
'Obviously,' Elsbeth agreed. 'The last thing I want is for him to think I'm a... what's that thing? Sounds kind of like the name of that monkey?'  
'Okay, for starters; the monkey is a Lemur and the thing your thinking of is a leper, they sound similar but are nothing fucking alike. Trust me on that one. Secondly, leprosy and vitiligo are not even remotely related,' Ilya explained, shaking his head. 'Anyway. I really doubt that'll be what he's thinking, but I mean, if it is I can always... you know.'

Ilya mimicked throwing a punch at someone. Elsbeth chuckled and shook her head.

'I don't think that will be necessary, Ilya,' she rolled her eyes. 'It's not a very good idea to go around punching people for no reason.'  
'I think looking out for my little sister is a good enough reason,' Ilya reached over and punched her arm softly. _'Wir haben einander Rücken.'_ ("We have each other's backs.")  
'Yeah, always,' Elsbeth smiled, punching her brother's arm in return. 'Although, if you compare me to a Silkie again. That might be up for debate.'  
'Come on, don't tell me you don't see it!' Ilya exclaimed, ruffling her hair again.  
'You can't say anything about my hair,' she shoved her brother hard. 'Look at that thing on top of your head!'  
'You are just jealous,' Ilya laughed, pushing her back.   
'Whatever you say,' Elsbeth rolled her eyes, chuckling softly.

They stayed under that tree for a long time, neither one of them displaying much intention on returning to camp anytime soon. They spoke of times long passed; like when Old man Nat got them drunk and Elsbeth's mother tore him a new one for it, how their father had just laughed and started sneaking them booze whenever there was a celebration going on. A favourite memory of theirs was when they would knock chunks out of each other - not that they were much better now - and had nearly given their parents a heart attack when they appeared covered in cuts and bruises. At some point, Ilya may have said something about heading back to camp in the morning seeing as it was starting to get dark. Elsbeth didn't argue with him, staying away gave her more time to think about what she was going to say to Charles.

She could feel the lack of sleep from the night prior catching up on her as she drifted into unconsciousness.


	8. What Kind of Fuckery is This?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hullo boahs, how're y'all doing?
> 
> This only took about a year to write and for that, I apologize, have this long-ass chapter in exchange for the wait. If you haven't noticed, the chapters now have names (whether or not they fit is a different story). 
> 
> If you want to see updates and art for Spider's Web and my other works, check out my Tumblr, here's a link: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/elysian-abyss
> 
> Also, just a little heads up, I have a few ideas for new stories to post on here and with the way it is looking right now, I am probably going to get them started which is probably not a good idea but fuck it! This means updates for Spider's Web will probably take longer but I am going to try and make chapters longer as well! Anyway, we'll see how this shitshow goes!
> 
> Not much else to say except for the usual stuff. I use a translator (not Google, I may be dumb, but I am not that dumb!) for any language other than English if anything is dodgy regarding that or anything else in this chapter, lemme know!
> 
> Enjoy the chapter, let me know what you think and stay safe.

When they got back to camp the next morning, Elsbeth felt like her heart was in her throat. Ilya had helped her figure out what she was going to say to Charles before they left the clearing and since then she had been rehearsing it in her head on repeat like a broken record. Ilya had pretty much pushed her off of Brutus when they arrived at the camp, but only because she was too distracted to notice. She waited beside him as he busied himself with checking the grey Percheron over, blue-green eyes glancing over the camp. What exactly she was expecting to see she didn't rightly know.

She wasn't quite sure what the actual time was, it felt early, but she doubted that it actually was. The air was cold - as it was most mornings - and nipped at her skin, even through her clothes. By no means was she bothered by it, never had been if she was honest and to a certain extent, she liked the cold. Ilya was similar except he enjoyed the cold and all it could bring on a whole other level. 

The feeling of fingers being dug into her ribs jerked Elsbeth from her thoughts and caused her to almost double over from the uncomfortable sensation it caused, a hand flying to her side protectively. She glared half-heartedly at the culprit. _You little bitch._

 _'Was zum Teufel?!'_ she hissed at him. ("What the hell?!")  
'You're over-thinking again, Elsie. Stop over-thinking,' Ilya grumbled, rolling his eyes at her. 'It'll just make you do something stupid again.'  
'That was hardly called for,' Elsbeth narrowed her eyes at Ilya, mostly referring to him stabbing her ribs with his fingers only moments before. _'Und nenne mich nicht Elsie, es ist Elsbeth.'_ ("And don't call me Elsie, it's Elsbeth.")  
 _'Was auch immer Sie sagen,'_ he rolled his eyes again, a lazy half-grin tugging at his lips. 'Stop being such a baby, Elsie.' ("Whatever you say,")  
'Oh, shut up,' the snowy-haired woman screwed up her face at him. 'You-you... Ilyushka.'

Ilya froze at the mention of that God-awful childhood nickname that was supposed to be dead and buried, and for a second Elsbeth truly didn't know how he was going to react.

'That's a fucking old one, Elsie,' he chuckled, shaking his head. 'I mean, come on, really? You can't think of something better?'  
'Like what?' Elsbeth pressed, crossing her arms over her chest. 'What could be better than Ilyushka?'  
'Anything, absolutely anything,' the older Wagner groaned. 'Hell, I'm sure Old man Nat could have come up with something better on a fucking come down.'  
'He's the one that started calling you that, Ilya,' Elsbeth pointed out. 'Among other things.'  
'Shut the hell up, ya little shit,' Ilya gave her a little shove. 'Don't you have something you're meant to be doing?'  
'You don't have to remind me,' she mumbled, scratching the back of her neck. 'We're coming back to this, I want to know what you can think of other than Ilyushka.'  
'If I think of anything,' Ilya hummed, reaching over and ruffling his sister's hair. 'You will be the last person I tell.'  
'I told you to stop doing that,' Elsbeth hissed, swatting Ilya's hand away and glaring at him. _'Arschloch.'_ ("Asshole.")  
'And I told you that's not gonna happen,' the large man replied, sniggering. 'So, fucking deal with it.'  
'Oh, I'll deal with it alright,' Elsbeth chuckled, lightly punching him in the arm. 

Instead of responding verbally, he put his hand on her shoulder and made a vague gesture to something behind her. Elsbeth turned to look in the direction he had pointed and felt her anxiety creep back in when her eyes landed on the back of the person in question. She quickly turned away and kept her eyes on the ground, gloved fingers fumbling with the edge of her sleeve.

'Go on, Els,' Ilya urged, his voice quieter than usual. 'Best do it now when there ain't too many people kicking about.'  
'But what if I just make this worse?' Elsbeth asked just as quiet. 'What if I mess this up as well?'  
'Don't do that,' the German man sighed heavily, rolling his eyes once more. 'You don't know what's going to happen. Thinking the worst is a waste of fucking energy, just go get the damn thing over with and stop fucking around.'  
'Easier said than done,' she muttered.  
'Jesus Christ, Elsbeth,' Ilya groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. 'I can't help you any more with this, just go get it over with or we are going to be in this goddamn back and forth for the next fucking millennia.'

At that, Ilya gave Elsbeth a hard shove that caused her to stumble forward a couple of steps before she was able to steady herself. Elsbeth turned and narrowed her eyes at him, to which he responded with a shrug. They stood there, just staring at each other, for a good minute or two. Ilya was the first to move, waving her off in a dismissive manner, wordlessly urging her to _get a fucking move on._

Seeing as there was nothing else to do but bite the, thankfully, metaphorical bullet; she turned on her heel, took in a deep breath and held her head up high in an attempt to replicate something akin to confidence. 

Yet again, Elsbeth believed her heart was in her throat as she neared where Charles was sitting. The words Ilya had helped her string together running through her head on a never-ending loop once more. Why the hell did this feel so much more difficult than it was? She was an adult, goddamn it, and she should have been able to have a conversation with someone without having a whole song and dance about it. She should be able to figure out the right words to say without needing her brother's help. The fact that she was incapable of even the simplest of tasks made her feel like a complete idiot.

Elsbeth left what she hoped was a good distance between them when she finally approached him. Her arms neatly tucked away behind her back to hide that her hands were shaking.

'Hey,' she greeted him, giving it her all to bite back the nervousness that was eating away at her. 'Could I, uh, talk to you for a second?'

The moment she felt his eyes on her, the words she had been rehearsing for the last hour or so disappeared as if they had never been there in the first place. 

'This about the other night?' He asked.  
'Uh, _j-ja,'_ Elsbeth cleared her throat as she struggled to find the right words. 'I wanted to apologise for how I acted, a-and that you had to see... what you saw, I know it isn't nice _._ So, I'm sorry about all of that and I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I hope you can forgive me, but it's fine if you don't! _Scheiße, das klang nicht gut._ That's all I-I needed to, uh, say. I'll just leave you alone now.' ("yes," "Shit, that didn't sound good.")

The small voice at the back of her mind chose that moment to make itself known, urging her to run away and hide as she had done the last time. The only difference was she wasn't going to do that. Ilya's words from earlier that morning ran through her head again as a small reminder to _g_ _ive the guy a fucking chance to talk_ and that running away was not an option today. It felt like she had been standing there for an eternity before Charles spoke. Although, what he said hadn't been at all what she had been expecting.

'You wanna go hunting?'

By the time her brain had caught up, she had already stammered out something along the lines of "sure". 

'I'm gonna go get Taima ready, meet me over there when you're ready to go,' he told her, walking away.

Elsbeth stood there for a minute - a little dazed as she tried to figure out _what the fuck just happened -_ then she kicked herself into gear and quickly made her way over to where Ilya was having a smoke, not wanting to keep Charles waiting too long. She would need to borrow her brother's rifle since the one she owned had been lost either when they ran from Blackwater or not long after.

'How'd it go?' was the first thing that came out of Ilya's mouth when he saw her.  
'I have no idea,' she confessed. 'Can I borrow your Springfield?'  
'Wait, wait, hold the fuck up,' Ilya brought up both of his hands to make the _stop_ gesture. 'Do you realise how dodgy that sounds? You don't know what's going on _and_ you want a gun?'  
'I didn't until you pointed that out. I'll have to explain later, I'm a bit confused,' Elsbeth answered, shrugging. 'And I need to borrow your Springfield because I'm going hunting with Charles.'

Ilya inhaled deeply and dropped his cigarette, stomping it out with the heel of his boot as he took in the information she had just chucked at him. He may have mumbled out something that sounded awfully like "you're always confused, dumbass."

'Right,' he spoke slower than he normally did. 'I'm not sure what's happening either, but the gun is in the tent. It doesn't matter too much when you give it back. Just do me a favour and don't, you know, break it or anything.'

Elsbeth just nodded, turning away to go retrieve the weapon from where he had claimed it was. Ilya stopped her by grabbing onto her wrist lightly, making her turn back to face him with a cocked brow.

'And, I wanna hear _all_ about it when you get back,' he smirked, winking at her.

The masked woman made a "tsk" sound and clipped him round the ear, muttering the word "idiot" as she did so. Ilya snickered at this, more amused by the whole situation than anything else. He released his grip on her and shooed her off.

'Careful,' he cautioned, pointing at her. 'Keep looking at me like that and I might mistake you for your mother.'  
'Careful,' Elsbeth mimicked, wagging her finger at him. 'Keep looking at me like that and I might mistake you for your mother.'  
'Wow, that's real funny,' Ilya clapped slowly, severely unimpressed by her attempt to sound like him. 'Real fucking funny. What are you? Five?'  
'What are you? Five?' She copied.  
'Get lost before I knock your ass out,' Ilya threatened as he flipped her the bird, eyes narrowed. 'You fucking child.'

Elsbeth chuckled and figured now was the perfect time to walk away since she was uncertain if he was joking or not, and she didn't particularly want to discover which it was either.

A few minutes later, she was mounted on Kaiser and following Charles out of camp with the borrowed rifle swung over her shoulder. Elsbeth kept her lips firmly shut, still unsure of what was going on and maybe a little afraid of saying anything. She couldn't remember a time she had been this confused. Actually, no, that was a lie. On her scale of confusion, this was somewhere between a five and an eight. Therefore meaning that this current situation was in her top three of the most confusing moments in her life.

Elsbeth narrowed her eyes and decided that, just maybe, Ilya was right and she should really, _really,_ stop thinking. It certainly was not helping her current situation any, and neither was whatever the hell just went on inside her brain. She found herself wondering _what kind of fuckery was that?_

Flicking her eyes over to Charles, she felt somewhat glad that he hadn't taken notice of her little... _whatever that was._

\- X ~ X -

She wasn't sure how long it had been since they had left camp, but she was beginning to doubt the reasoning behind this little outing; they had passed several sets of animal tracks but had yet to hunt anything. The ride over the plains had been mostly quiet, the only words exchanged between them were Charles giving directions or pointing out more animal tracks and Elsbeth agreeing with him in as few words as possible. 

She didn't know how she was supposed to approach this; was she supposed to just overlook what had happened and carry on as normal, or did she dare to bring the subject up again and try to clear the air? Part of her thought that maybe he didn't know how to deal with this either, it wouldn't surprise her if that was the case. She wasn't sure how she would react to seeing someone else with Vitiligo, so she could only imagine what it would be like for someone who had never seen it before. 

'Elsbeth.'

The quiet call of her name snapped her from her thoughts and she turned her head towards Charles, he had brought Taima to a halt and was staring off into the distance. Giving Kaiser's reins a light tug, the blue-black Friesian came to a stop beside them.

'What is it?' she asked, somewhat hesitantly, as she tried to see what it was that he was looking at. 

The sky was no longer clear as it had been for the most of the day; dark clouds loomed ominously above them, looking like they were being dragged down by the weight of the rain that was being held behind them.

'There's a storm coming,' Charles said, glancing back at her for only a moment. 'I think-'

A loud clap of thunder cut him off with the rain following close behind, pelting them with bullets of ice-cold water. Kaiser let out a snort and stomped nervously on the spot, Elsbeth tightened her grip on his reins with one hand while using the other to hold onto her bandana in case the sudden downpour forced it to shift out of place. It was only a matter of time before the Gelding tried to throw her off and make a run for it. If it had just been raining, he would have been completely fine but storms like this were a whole other story. She released her hold on her bandana in favour of running her hand across Kaiser's neck to calm him down. 

'We might be able to make it back to camp before this gets too bad,' she suggested, her voice barely being heard over the rain.

Lightning illuminated the sky for a split second, followed by an earth-shaking crack of thunder. 

'There's a cabin that's still standing along the trail a bit, never seen anyone near it,' he nodded along the trail they had been following for the last ten or so minutes. 'You alright with that?'

Whether she was alright with it or not didn't matter in the slightest, that was probably their best, and only, option. _Even if it is strangely convenient that a cabin would just happen to be nearby at a time like this._

'Fine by me,' she stated as she shot him an awkward thumbs up, regretting it almost immediately afterwards. _Y_ _ou dumbass, why did you do that?_

In the time it took for them to reach the cabin, they were both drenched. The cabin itself didn't look that great either, it was easy to tell that it had been abandoned for quite some time. Although that hardly mattered. There was a shed big enough for the horses just to the side of the cabin that looked pretty stable. Anyone would be able to tell that Kaiser was nearly ecstatic to get out of the rain and away from the loud bangs and flashes that caused him so much distress. Just how exactly he could deal with gunfire and not a storm like this baffled her.

After settling the horses in the shed and removing their tack, Charles and Elsbeth made a run for the cabin. Charles entered the structure first, his shotgun at the ready but was met with nothing but dust and rotted furniture left behind by the previous occupiers. Elsbeth following in shortly after when she was certain the horses would be alright for the night. Once inside the cabin, she placed her saddle down by the door so it could dry. 

'You should get changed,' Charles stated, breaking the silence that had enveloped the room. 'You'll catch something if you stay in those.'

Elsbeth glanced over to him, instantly looking away when she realised that he was shirtless, grateful that at least his back was to her. She mumbled out some kind of response as she stumbled over to rake through her saddlebag, removing her soaked gloves beforehand, of course.

Pulling out one of the many shirts she had stolenfrom her big brother, a grin spread across her lips. She wasn't going to lie that suddenly taking claim of Ilya's clothing wasn't a common occurrence for her, because it very much was and she was not ashamed in the slightest by that fact. Ilya was fully aware of what she did, but had never said anything about it bothering him; if he did mention it, it was to laugh and make some shitty joke about his clothes practically swallowing her. _Although, he wasn't wrong about that either._

Elsbeth had never gotten changed so fast in her life. Her shirt - as previously mentioned - _engulfed her,_ stopping just below her knees. Her legs were clad in a pair of dark, loose-fitting trousers. She took note of how limited the colours of her clothing was; it was either some dark shade of blue or some other dark colour. Also, she had never been one to dress all that feminine like, despite her mother's many, many attempts to change that. When she was young - before her brother and she had gotten lost - her clothes had been similar to what Ilya had worn, still were if she was honest. She didn't think it was all that strange and didn't much care about those that did, she just preferred clothes that were about twice her size.

Shaking her head with narrowed eyes, she twisted her bandana in her hands and watched as the water nearly poured out of it. Once again she went searching through her saddlebag looking for the spare bandana she kept in there, only to find it wasn't to be found. Her heart dropped when she recalled giving it to Ilya when his one went missing at some point during the move from Colter to Horseshoe. Her mind began to race as she tried to figure out a solution to this fucking catastrophe. She briefly contemplated just putting her bandana back on, _but that would defeat the purpose of putting on dry clothes just to go and get them soaked all over again._

She decided to just pull her shirt up over the portion of her face that the bandana normally covered and then move her hair in front of the right side of her face so it would hide any of the skin her shirt didn't. Managing to convince herself that it would be fine, that she could handle this for however long it took for her bandana to dry enough for her to be able to wear it. _Just keep your guard up,_ she told herself. The right sleeve of the shirt was balled up in her fist, closing off the opening and hiding her right hand away while her left never once released its iron grip on the dark material covering her face, afraid of it slipping down if she let go. _Then the word catastrophe wouldn't even begin to describe the mess she would be in._

She settled herself down near one of the windows, still able to see out without being seen by anyone that might happen to pass by, watching the rain bucketing down outside and listening as the mere sound almost drowned everything else out. She couldn't help but wonder if the storm was this bad back at camp, or if it was there at all. Ilya wasn't overly fond of storms, she would almost say he feared them. He never really said why that was, although she doubted that he knew himself. Their father hated storms too, but he was never able to tell them the story behind his hatred. She couldn't quite remember the words her mother had used to describe how she felt about storms, probably because her mother tended to switch between languages unpredictably.

'Elsbeth.'

Once again, the call of her name jarred the pale headed German from her thoughts. She looked over hesitantly at Charles, her grip somehow tightening even more on the collar of her shirt. She hummed in acknowledgement and waited to see what it was he wanted.

'About earlier, you didn't need to apologise for any of that,' he said.   
'Yes, I did,' she insisted, brows raised as she shifted to face the man better. 'It wouldn't have been right if I hadn't.'  
'No, I mean you had no reason to. You didn't do anything wrong,' Charles clarified. 'I should be the one apologising.'  
'You? What... why would you need to apologise?' she inquired, confused yet again.  
'Well, I obviously upset you when I saw...' he made a gesture to her covered arm with his hand.

Elsbeth looked at him blankly for a moment before standing up and walking over to sit beside him, mindful to leave adequate space between them.

'The proper name for it is Vitiligo and it's caused by the lack of pigment in my skin. There are different types but mine is called Segmental Vitiligo, it's less common than the other types and only affects parts of my skin,' she began, explaining her condition best she could. 'And, if anything, I upset myself. I have a habit of doing that when it comes to my skin, so you didn't upset me. I'm not... I haven't exactly had that many decent experiences with people seeing it, not that that is an excuse or anything like that.'

Shutting up to allow him a chance to take all that in and unsure of how to continue, blue-green eyes trailed back to the window and watched the rain hit against the dirty glass. After a minute or two of deafening silence, she felt a hand gently take ahold of her right arm and move it from its place on her lap. She turned to look immediately, the grip she had on the cuff of her sleeve tightening slightly. 

'Can I see it?' 

The question caught her off guard and caused her to frown. _Why would he want to see it again? Wasn't seeing it once enough?_

'Why?' she questioned hesitantly, unsure as to if she actually wanted to find out the answer.  
'It's fine if you say no,' the dark-haired man assured her. 'I get that it's a sensitive topic for you but you don't need to feel ashamed of your skin. It's a part of you, it's what makes you who you are.'

Elsbeth looked at him with wide eyes as she took his words in, completely lost for words. No longer than a minute passed before she inhaled deeply and lowered her left hand, using it to roll up her right sleeve and reveal the mismatched skin. Her hand returned to her collar when the task was complete. Her eyes unmoving from the offending limb despite the sickening feeling that settled in her stomach at the sight of it as she waited for what was to come with bated breath.

Charles took ahold of her wrist once again. The grip on her wrist was light and she probably wouldn't have even noticed it if she hadn't been watching. They were silent as he observed the patches of almost white flesh, fingers faintly tracing over where white met brown seamlessly. He would occasionally turn her hand to get a better look. It felt like they sat there for hours when in reality it had barely been five minutes. 

'Does it hurt?' He eventually asked, coffee-coloured eyes flicking to meet blue-green ones. 

The sudden question caught her off guard, something she noticed happened a bit too much with Charles.

'Uh, n-no,' she answered, shaking her head. 'It's the same as regular skin, just missing colour.'  
'How much of you does it cover?' his eyes lifted from her hand to meet her eyes once more.  
'Most of my right side; the patches on my face and back are the worst. All the other patches are like what's on my hand, only different sizes,' these weren't questions she hadn't answered before, yet it felt strange when they were coming from him, and not the bad kind of strange either.  
'How are they worse?' he wondered, raising a brow at her.  
'They're, uh...' she hesitated, quickly trying to figure out what to tell him, but finding no easy way to describe them. 'How-how about I just show you?'

It felt strange offering to show more of her skin since she normally tried so hard to hide it, but seeing as he hadn't shown any signs of disgust - or anything else she considered as bad - so far, she figured it would be alright. The sickening feeling still lingered but was nowhere near as awful as it tended to be. 

'As long as you're alright with that,' he nodded slowly after a moment or two of consideration.

Elsbeth nodded as well, hoping for the best but preparing herself for the worst. Turning away from Charles, she pulled the shirt collar from her face and pushed her hair out of the way. She kept her eyes averted when she turned back, the little voice at the back of her mind whispering that if he hadn't been disgusted before, he certainly had to be now. _Shut up. Just shut up._

Mustering up whatever courage she could, she forced herself to meet his eyes. 

Charles was staring at her intensely and the snowy-haired woman found herself unable to identify the look in his eyes no matter how hard she tried. Heat rushed to her face and she was almost certain that it was visible.

'What?' she asked, voice laden with anxiety.

Charles seemed to snap out of whatever daze he had been in and tore his eyes away from her face, a somewhat embarrassed look crossing normally stoic features for a split-second.

'A spider's web,' he reached over to brush the stray strands of hair that fell over her eye back behind her ear, his hand lingering for a moment longer than necessary.   
'Yeah,' Elsbeth nodded, unsure of what else to say.  
'Is it all like that?' Charles asked, tilting her head up to get a better look at the markings that travelled from just below her right eye, across her cheek and then down her neck. 'The "worse" parts?'  
'Uh-huh,' she hummed, starting to feel just a tad bit awkward now. 'I-I know it looks really disgusting-'  
'No,' Charles interrupted her, lowering his hand from her face. 'You're beautiful.'

If her face wasn't already red, it most definitely was now. She could practically feel the heat radiating off of her skin.

'I-I, uh, _danke,_ ' she mumbled, not at all used to being complimented by anyone. ("thanks,")

Her eyes were on the window yet again, the rain looked nowhere near as heavy as it had been when they arrived and she hadn't heard nor seen the thunder and lightning for quite some time.

'We should try and get some rest,' Charles stated. 

Elsbeth nodded in agreement, getting up and walking back over to the space she had taken claim of earlier. 


End file.
